Tag: ukraine

Best-Selling US Author Cancels Her Own Book In Response To Anti-Russian PR Campaign

Elizabeth Gilbert, the best-selling American author, announced last week that she would soon be publishing a novel set in Russia. In light of a Russo-phobic public relations campaign unleashed against her, the Eat, Pray, Love author has since rescinded those plans.

In a “massive outpouring of reactions,” Ukrainian readers expressed “anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain,” over the book’s setting, Gilbert said. This led the author to make a self-described “course correction,” shelving the novel indefinitely.

Originally slated for a February 2024 release, Gilbert’s The Snow Forest is set in Siberia during the 20th century. It follows “a group of individuals who made a decision [in the 1930s] to remove themselves from society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization,” says Gilbert. For 44 years, they manage to live undetected but in 1980, they are discovered by a Soviet geological team. According to the Guardian, “a scholar and linguist is sent to the family’s home to bridge the chasm between modern existence and their ancient, snow forest life.”

Gilbert reported that, over the weekend, she was flooded with messages from Ukrainians telling her it was unacceptable to publish her work. “The fact that I would choose to release a book into the world right now, any book, no matter what the subject of it is, that is set in Russia,” is beyond the pale. That was the consensus amidst the deluge.

Absurd accusations were levied against Gilbert, including that her book would be akin to a novel “glorifying” the “brave Germans” during the Second World War.

According to The Atlantic, “Gilbert’s unpublished book garnered a slew of one-star reviews, all from commenters who hadn’t seen the text. Even though her book doesn’t seem to remotely venerate Russian nationalism, Gilbert committed the sin of setting her narrative in Russia – and for some of her readers, that was a deeply insensitive, borderline-treacherous act.”

The author concluded shortly after her announcement, “It is not the time for this book to be published.” Adding “I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.” Further, she insisted to her fans that anybody who pre-ordered the book will be “fully refunded.”

Since she announced her decision to pull the book from the publication schedule, Gilbert has been criticized by authors and other writers who feel that caving to the pressure is “setting a terrible precedent.” Even vehement supporters of escalated US involvement in the Ukraine war have admonished Gilbert for participating in her own modern-day book burning.

“In meekly complying with the angriest voices, she accepted their argument that setting a book in Russia is an act of collusion, even though that’s an entirely nonsensical argument. In effect, she’s allowing the irrational feelings of her readers to set the terms of acceptable discourse. For a group to block a book, it just needs to clog the comments on Instagram with hurt feelings,” Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic, said. This was after he recommended the protesters’ energy would be better spent lobbying their governments to send Kiev F-16 fighter bombers instead.

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Senior Russian Official: Putin Has Green Light To Sever Undersea Commo Cables

Following reports attributing the September destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines to the Ukrainian or US government, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council has declared that President Vladimir Putin should feel free to sever undersea communication cables of the country’s “enemies.” 

“If we proceed from the proven complicity of Western countries in blowing up the Nord Streams, then we have no constraints – even moral – left to prevent us from destroying the ocean floor cable communications of our enemies,” said Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram. Medvedev was Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012 and is a close ally of Putin. 

Last month, NATO intelligence chief David Cattler warned of a rising risk of just such a move. “There are heightened concerns that Russia may target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an effort to disrupt Western life, to gain leverage against those nations that are providing security to Ukraine,” he told reporters. Naturally, the NATO intel officer’s list of potential motivations omitted retaliation-in-kind in the wake of the severing of the Nord Stream pipelines. 

“The Russians are more active than we have seen them in years in this domain,” Cattler told reporters, noting a higher pace of Russian patrols all across the Atlantic and in the Baltic and North seas. “Russia is actively mapping allied critical infrastructure both on land and on the seabed.”

The oceans are a target-rich environment. More than 400 undersea cables carry more than 95% of international internet traffic. “Altogether, they carry an estimated 10 trillion U.S. dollars worth of financial transactions every day, so these cables really are an economic linchpin,” said Cattler. 

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Killing The Story – Bakhmut, Nick Cohen, Kakhovka, Nord Stream and Piers Morgan

The late writer, broadcaster and wit Clive James formulated what he called the ‘Barry Manilow Law’:

‘Everyone you know thinks Barry Manilow is absolutely terrible. But everyone you don’t know thinks he’s great.’ (James, cited Martin Amis, ‘Inside Story,’ Vintage, 2020, e-book, p.74)

A Media Lens version of this might read:

‘Everyone you know thinks BBC News is absolutely terrible. But everyone you don’t know thinks it’s great.’

The BBC wasn’t always quite this bad. When we started out in 2001, people like Director of News Richard Sambrook and Newsnight editor Peter Barron sent us long, respectful replies to our analysis. We were invited to appear on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC radio (we were interviewed by BBC Radio Five Live). Barron even blogged about us positively on the BBC website.

All of this has gone. Our criticisms, now, are met with paranoid silence. And there is much for BBC journalists to be paranoid about, for they are now clearly operating as de facto agents of state.

When the US targeted Syria for ‘regime change’ in 2011, a flood of anti-Assad atrocity claims and pro-‘rebel’ propaganda washed across the BBC’s news pages. The BBC’s campaign ended the moment the US campaign for regime change ended. When Iran, Venezuela and Libya fell under the US crosshairs, the same BBC propaganda machine cranked into action. Similarly, anyone measuring BBC performance 2022-2023 will find hundreds of reports and comment pieces favouring the Ukraine/Nato version of events, against one or two favouring the Russian version of events. This, even though our country is technically not at war with Russia – certainly Russia is not attacking us. It couldn’t be more obvious that when the green light for war and ‘regime change’ is on, the BBC is expected to host daily propaganda pieces to generate public support.

In his superb book, ‘Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War’, published in 1928, Lord Arthur Ponsonby analysed the key propaganda techniques that had been used to deceive the public during the catastrophic war of 1914-1918:

  1. We do not want war.
  2. The opposite party alone is guilty of war.
  3. The enemy is inherently evil and resembles the devil.
  4. We defend a noble cause, not our own interests.
  5. The enemy commits atrocities on purpose; we make ‘mistakes’.
  6. The enemy uses forbidden weapons.
  7. We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
  8. Recognised artists and intellectuals back our cause.
  9. Our cause is sacred.
  10.  All who doubt our propaganda are traitors.

Most BBC, Guardian and other ‘mainstream’ war coverage is a cocktail of these ten forms of bias.

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CIA Knew Ukraine Was Planning To Bomb Nord Stream Pipelines

Several Western media outlets reported Tuesday that the CIA warned Ukraine last year not to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia and Germany.

In recent months, US and other Western officials speaking to the media have suggested Ukraine was behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Most reports on the issue have ignored or dismissed the fact that journalist Seymour Hersh has sources who said President Biden ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

According to unnamed US officials speaking to The New York Times, Dutch intelligence officials told the CIA in June 2022 that they learned of a Ukrainian military plot to attack the pipelines. The CIA then warned Ukraine not to carry out the attack, and US officials now believe it was postponed to September 2022.

A European official told the Times that Ukraine’s original plan involved Ukrainian special forces renting a submersible vessel to attack the pipelines. The CIA was also said to warn Germany about a potential plot to sabotage Nord Stream.

The latest Nord Stream allegations were first reported by the news outlet Die Zeit and NOS, a Dutch broadcaster. They claimed that the Ukrainian plot was overseen by Valery Zaluchny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied Kyiv was involved in the destruction of the pipelines. “I am president, and I give orders accordingly,” he said. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.”

The idea that the US suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings first surfaced in a New York Times report that was published on March 7. Sources told Seymour Hersh that the report was a cover-up planted in the paper by the CIA to discredit his story that points the finger at President Biden.

Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream plot hasn’t been confirmed, but the US is still a prime suspect as it had a clear motive and US officials made threats against the pipelines. On February 7, 2022, President Biden vowed to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.

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The Government Keeps Lying to Us About Ukraine. Where Is the Outrage? 

On June 4, a group referring to itself as the “Polish Volunteer Corps” issued a boastful announcement confirming its participation in a series of cross-border ground offensives into Russia. News of these audacious raids was jarring enough, given the many prior assurances of U.S. and Ukrainian war planners, who insisted no attacks would be carried out inside Russian territory. It was all the more conspicuous that the incursion units were apparently comprised of Polish soldiers.

Poland, of course, is not only a NATO member state, but the NATO member state with which the U.S. has most assiduously aligned itself since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine (Polish government officials deny any formal connection to the “Polish Volunteer Corps”). So the raids raised an obvious, yet oft-neglected question: Just what the hell is U.S. policy in Ukraine?

If you turn on the TV, you’ll find pundits on every channel loyally reciting from memory the broad parameters of the U.S. mission—at least as it’s being conveyed in daily rhetorical flourishes by Biden Administration officials, assorted Congressional chest-thumpers, and brave think tank warriors. Freedom and autocracy are locked in a great cosmic battle of good versus evil, or so goes the usual storyline—most often narrated with a degree of moral complexity that can be generously compared to a lower-tier Marvel Movie.

But apart from this steady stream of heavily recycled platitudes, was it ever plainly disclosed to Americans—the chief financial sponsors of the Ukraine war effort, after all—that the scope of the war effort they’ve found themselves subsidizing would eventually expand to include platoons of Polish soldiers marching straight into Russia? Did anyone back in Washington, D.C. sign off on this, or was there ever an opportunity granted for public consideration of its potentially foreboding implications?

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Pentagon Personnel Did Not Appropriately Track Weapons Transferred to Ukraine

A report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found Pentagon employees in Poland failed to follow procedures to account for military equipment being transferred to Ukraine. In the shipments of weapons monitored by the office, Pentagon employees failed to properly track the weapons in three of five shipments.

“DoD personnel did not have the required accountability of the thousands of defense items that they received and transferred at Jasionka, [Poland],” it stated. “We observed that DoD personnel did not fully implement their standard operating procedures to account for defense items and could not confirm the quantities of defense items received against the quantity of items shipped for three of five shipments we observed.”

The Pentagon does not “have reasonable assurance that their database of all defense items transferred to the [Ukraine] via air transport in Jasionka was accurate or complete.” The report added, “14 The DoD may risk providing more or less equipment than authorized by [President Joe Biden], and may not be able to verify the quantity of all defense items before they are transferred to [Ukraine].”

One example in the inspector general report explains how weapons are shipped without a manifest. “One shipment containing thousands of small arms, night vision optics devices, and various types of cold weather gear did not include an air manifest.” The report continues, “DoD personnel opened crates to identify the types of defense items contained within the crates, but even then the personnel could not verify whether the number of items they identified represented the true number shipped.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Washington has shipped tens of billions in weapons to Ukraine, including advanced platforms. The Pentagon inspector general report examined arms shipped to Ukraine directly from American stockpiles. 

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NATO Chief Says Russia Must Lose in Ukraine to Send Message to China

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Biden in Washington on Tuesday and said Russia must lose in Ukraine to send a message to China as the Western alliance increasingly has its eyes on the Asia Pacific.

“President Putin must not win this war, because that will not only be a tragedy for Ukrainians, but also make the world more dangerous,” Stoltenberg said at the White House before a meeting with Biden.

“It will send a message to authoritarian leaders all over the world, also in China, that when they use military force, they get what they want, and we will then become more vulnerable. So it’s our security interest to support Ukraine,” he added.

Stoltenberg’s comments come as NATO is planning to boost ties with countries in the Asia Pacific. According to a report from Nikkei Asia, the alliance is preparing documents to increase relations with its four main partners in the region, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

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Ukraine Situation Report: U.S. Sending More Bradleys

The Pentagon tomorrow will announce a new aid package that will include additional Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker Armored Vehicles, a U.S. official tells The War Zone.

“I can confirm that the next Presidential Drawdown Package (expected tomorrow) contains roughly two dozen Bradleys and Strykers,” a U.S. official said in a statement to The War Zone.

The official, confirming earlier reporting by The Voice of America about the types of vehicles to be included, did not know the exact number of each vehicle.

The news about the additional donated armor vehicles comes as the open source tracking group Oryx said that Ukraine has lost 16 Bradleys so far in its counteroffensive. The group, which only tabulates vehicles for which is can visually confirm, does not mention Strykers damaged or destroyed in its latest assessment.

You can read much more about how Ukrainian troops performed in breaching operation that led to a bulk of the destroyed Bradleys in our story here.

To date, the U.S. has donated 109 M2A2-ODS Bradley variants and four B-FIST variants as well as as 90 Strykers.

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The Western Media Is Whitewashing the Azov Battalion

Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in millions of losers—chief among them the civilians who’ve been tortured, murdered, forced to become refugees, or forced to spend their days worrying about loved ones fighting Russia.

But there are also winners: the neofascists whom Putin’s war has turned into heroes.

For seven years, Western institutions have warned about Ukraine’s Azov Movement, which began as a neo-Nazi paramilitary group in 2014 and became notorious for its worldwide recruitment of extremists.

Then came Russia’s invasion. Within months, Azov fighters were being feted in Congress and at Stanford University. MSNBC swooned over a Ukrainian soldier whose Twitter account overflowed with neo-Nazi images. Facebook made the stunning decision to allow posts praising the Azov Battalion, even though the company admitted that it was a hate group.

This overnight normalization of white supremacy was possible because Western institutions, driven by a zeal to ignore anything negative about our Ukrainian allies, decided that a neo-Nazi military formation in a war-torn nation had suddenly and miraculously stopped being neo-Nazi.

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White House Set To Approve Depleted Uranium Munitions For Ukraine

The Biden administration is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday.

Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington. 

This came at the request of the Ukrainians themselves: “The Pentagon has urged that the Abrams tanks the U.S. is providing Ukraine be armed with depleted-uranium rounds, which are regularly used by the U.S. Army and are highly effective against Russian tanks,” WSJ writes.

Already the UK has been providing armor piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium for its Challenger 2 main battle tanks. This was first announced by Britain’s defense ministry in late March.

The condemnation from the Kremlin in response to London was swift, with a Russian foreign ministry statement at the time saying it was tantamount to using a “dirty bomb” – given the highly dangerous remnant health effects on the battlefield.

While the UK defense ministry asserted that “Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles,” Moscow responded “These shells not only kill, but infect the environment and cause oncology in people living on these lands.”

There have been ongoing attempts over the years of international watchdogs to get depleted uranium shells banned by international treaty. EU parliament, for example, has long pushed for a ban.

A defense analyst cited in the fresh WSJ report describes why they are so sought after by Ukrainian forces: 

“The projectile hits like a freight train,” said Scott Boston, a defense analyst at the Rand Corporation and former Army artillery officer. “It is very long and very dense. So it puts a great deal of kinetic energy on a specific point on an enemy armor array.”

But, as the report also notes, “The proposal has been debated at the White House, where some officials have expressed concern that sending the rounds might open Washington to criticism that it was providing a weapon that may carry health and environmental risks.”

It is the “chemical toxicity” of the metals used which poses the biggest danger, also as upon explosion it is turned into toxic dust which is dispersed on the battlefield and can have a permanent presence. 

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